320 USEFUL BIRDS. 
caterpillars; and should there be an outbreak of canker- 
worms in the orchard, the Blackbirds will fly at least half a 
mile to get cankerworms for their young. Wilson estimated 
that the Red-wings of the United States would in four months 
destroy sixteen thousand, two hundred million larve. 
They eat the caterpillars of the gipsy 
moth, the forest tent caterpillar, and 
other hairy larve. They are among the 
most destructive birds to weevils, click 
beetles, and wireworms. Grasshoppers, 
ants, bugs, and flies form a portion of 
Fig. 143.—Red-wingea the Red-wings’ food. They eat com- 
Blackbird, female, about paratively little grain in Massachusetts, 
although they get some from newly sown 
fields in spring, as well as from the autumn harvest; but 
they feed very largely on the seeds of weeds and wild rice 
in the fall. In the south they join with the Bobolink in 
devastating the rice fields, and in the west they are often so 
numerous as to destroy the grain in the fields; but here the 
good they do far outweighs the injury, and for this reason 
they are protected by law. 
Cowbird. Cow Blackbird. Cow Bunting. 
Molothrus ater. 
Length. — Seven and one-half to about eight inches. 
Adult Male. — Lustrous black, with a rich, lustrous brown head and neck. 
Adult Female. — Brownish-gray, slightly darker on wings and tail. 
Nest. — That of some other bird. 
Eggs. — White, speckled all over with brown. 
Season. — April to October. 
This much-maligned bird, which builds no home of its 
own, and: depends on others to hatch and rear its young, is, 
nevertheless, an essential part of nature’s plan. Birds thats 
rear ‘their Own young are confined by necessity to a certain 
radius about their nests; but the scattered bands of Cowbirds 
form a wandering, unattached light squadron of insect de- 
stroyers, which all summer long can go wherever their pres- 
ence is most needed. In the warmer months of the year they 
feed almost entirely on insects, but during the colder months 
they live on seeds. 
